LXXIX. CHAP. "Ils trouvèrent à l'heure marquée son Altesse dans la chambre de Mademoiselle Hyde. Ses yeux paroissoient mouillés de quelques larmes, qu'elle s'efforçoit de retenir. Le Chancellier appuyé contre la muraille, leur parut bouffi de quelque chose. Ils ne doutèrent point que ce ne fût de rage et de désespoir. Le Duc d'York leur dit de cet air content et serein dont on annonce les bonnes nouvelles: Comme vous êtes les deux hommes de la Cour que j'estime le plus, je veux que vous ayez les premiers l'honneur de saluer la Duchesse d'York. La voilà."" Duchess of Not the least wonderful part of the story is the Duchess's giveness of conduct to her calumniator. Clarendon says, "the Duke Sir Charles had brought Sir Charles Berkeley to the Duchess, at whose Berkeley. feet he had cast himself with all the acknowledgment and penitence he could express; and she, according to the command of the Duke, accepted his submission, and promised to forget the offence;" but, according to Hamilton, she went farther, and praised the conduct of Berkeley and his associates, telling them "that nothing marks more plainly the self-devotion of an honourable man than de prendre un peu sur sa probite*, to serve the interests of a master or a friend." All this we may believe of the daughter, when the stern old father gives us this evidently subdued account of his own complaisance :-"He came likewise to the Chancellor with those professions which he could easily make; and the other was obliged to receive him civilly."† Jan. 1. 1661. The restoration of harmony in the royal family was facilitated by the sudden death of the Princess of Orange and the Duke of Gloucester, and by a message from Cardinal Mazarine to the Queen mother, "that if she wished to be well received when she returned to the Court of France, she must be exceedingly civil to the Lord Chancellor, whom he was anxious to oblige." On the day before she left England, the Duke brought his wife to be presented to her for the first time, and the "Queen," says Pepys, "is said to receive her now with much respect and love." The new Duchess Anglicè, "to tell a calumnious falsehood." Pepys, i, 166. supported her rank at Court with as much ease and dignity CHAP. as if she had never moved in an inferior station. Her elevation by no means tended to the permanent stability of the Chancellor; but for a short time he was on terms of cordiality with his son-in-law, and, if possible, in higher favour with the King. LXXIX. The Chancellor cre ated Earl of Cla rendon, April, He was now raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Hyde of Hindon, and shortly after he was created Viscount Cornbury and Earl of Clarendon. On the application of the Duke of York he was likewise offered the Garter; but though several of his predecessors had borne this distinction, he 1661. wisely declined it, thinking that it would bring him more envy than advantage. He accepted a more substantial proof of royal gratitude in a present of 20,000l. Charles at the same time made him an offer of 10,000 acres of Crown land; but this he declined, saying, that "it was the principal part or obligation of his office to dissuade the King from making any grants of such a nature (except when the necessity or convenience was very notorious), and even to stop those which should be made of that kind, and not to suffer them to pass the Seal till he had again waited upon the King, and informed him of the evil consequence of these grants, which discharge of his duty could not but raise him many enemies, who should not have that advantage to say that he obstructed the King's bounty towards other men, when he made it very profuse towards himself."* * Life, ii. 408. CHAPTER LXXX. CHAP. LXXX. May 8. 1661. First par Charles II. CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD CLARENDON TILL HIS AC- SOON after the ceremony of the coronation, at which the Chancellor appeared with his lately conferred dignity of an Earl, he had to meet the new parliament. Before its dissolution at the end of eighteen years, it gave abundant oppoliament of sition to the inclinations of the Court, but the great difficulty at first was to repress its exuberant loyalty. Although the Presbyterians had been so powerful in the Convention Parliament, only fifty-six of that persuasion were returned to the present House of Commons, and almost all the other members were taken from the hottest of the Cavaliers. The House of Lords was tempered by a considerable number of liberal and moderate Peers; but the House of Commons was, at its outset, the most intolerant, bigoted, slavishly inclined legislative assembly which ever met in England, and greatly exceeded the other House in the desire to fix the Church on the narrowest foundation, and to persecute all who should not rigidly conform to its doctrines and discipline. * Clarendon's designs against the Presbyterians. On the first day of the session, the King, having spoken at greater length than usual, still referred the two Houses for a farther explanation of his views to the Lord Chancellor. Clarendon, knowing that the ecclesiastical measures which he approved of were now completely in his power, prepared the parliament for receiving them, and took a very unfair advantage of the late mad and wicked insurrection of Venner and the "Millenarians," which was in reality as much condemned and deplored by the Presbyterians, as by the members of the Church of England. However, to check the cavalier "The representatives," says Rapin, "for the most part were elected agree. ably to the wishes and without doubt by the influence of the Court. This parliament may be said to be composed by Chancellor Hyde, prime minister.” The insane insurrection of Venner and the Millenarians had thrown a great discredit on all dissenters. CHAP. LXXX. May 16. 1661. Resolution expel dis impetuosity of the new parliament, he strongly inculcated upon them the propriety of adhering to the Act of Indemnity. The Commons, whether prompted by him I know not, showed their spirit by beginning the session with a most unconstitutional resolution, which was to be acted upon without of the Comthe consent of the Lords or the King," that all their members mons to should forthwith take the sacrament according to the rites of senters. the Church of England on pain of expulsion from the House."* To exasperate the public mind, he certainly encouraged the Lords to join the Commons in an order that "the solemn league and covenant” (which the reigning King had signed), should be burnt by the hands of the common hangman,along with the ordinances for the trial of the late King, for establishing a commonwealth, and for the security of the person of the Lord Protector. No wonder that he afterwards found extreme difficulty in prevailing upon them to confirm the Act of Indemnity, notwithstanding his earnest representations that the promise of it had brought about the Restoration, and that the faith of the King and of the nation was pledged to it.‡ restoring of Lords, June 22. 1661. The declaration for union and comprehension which Claren- Bill for don had drawn, and the King had published during the Con- Bishops to vention Parliament, and Sir Matthew Hale's bill founded the House upon it, of course were thought of no more. The first church bill which Clarendon introduced met with very little opposition, being to restore the Bishops to their seats in the House of Lords. The act for their exclusion had passed in times of great violence, and there was a general feeling that for the dignity of the assembly of which they had ever formed a constituent part, and for the honour and protection of the church, they should again exercise their parliamentary functions along with the hereditary nobility. Dec. 19. Next came Clarendon's famous "Corporation Act," which, contrary to the declaration of Breda, -- contrary to the re- Corpora * 4 Parl. Hist. 208. + Ib. 209. Such proceedings show that from the late troubles men of all parties had forgotten the limits of the constitutional powers of the two Houses. This House of Commons made orders directly on the Attorney and Solicitor General to prosecute for high treason, without even the form of an address to the Crown. 4 Parl. Hist. 209-213. 1661. tion Act. LXXX. CHAP. peated promises of the King and the Chancellor after their return, contrary to the plain principles of justice and expediency, contrary to the respect and reverence due to the most solemn institution of our holy religion which was to be desecrated, provided that no one should be elected to any corporate office, who had not, within a year before his election, taken the sacrament of the Lord's supper according to the rites of the Church of England, — laying down a rule which was soon to be applied to all civil offices and public employments. It was violently opposed, but passed by large majorities, and it continued the opprobrium of the Statute Book till, by the unwearied exertions in the cause of civil and religious liberty of an illustrious patriot, it was repealed in our own times. March, ity. Clarendon followed up this blow by the Act of Uniformity,—which, on St. Bartholomew's day following, ejected 2000 ministers from their livings, which, if rigidly enforced (as it was intended to be), would have established a system of persecution unparalleled in any Protestant country, and which, notwithstanding the succeeding Act of Toleration, annual indemnity acts, and other relaxations, has had the effect of depriving the Church of England of the support of those who now form the Wesleyan and other powerful and pious persuasions, and, in the opinion of some, has considerably impaired her influence and usefulness. It is remarkable that, although Clarendon himself presided in the House of Lords, these and all the other violent measures of the session were much less cordially received in that assembly than in the House of Commons, where it was hardly possible to restrain members from proceeding to extremities against all who had ever submitted to the authority of the Commonwealth, or questioned the infallibility of Archbishop Laud. For example, the Act of Uniformity was abundantly stringent as Clarendon himself framed it; but he tells us, that no sooner did it come down to the Commons, "than every man, according to his passion, thought of adding somewhat to it that might make it more grievous to somebody whom he did not love." The Lords had set apart one fifth of the profits of the livings from which the noncon |